Faded Away
by Aleia Jade
Summary: In which Lightman emulates the popular culture image of a leprechaun before remembering why he currently hates the world.


_a/n: Found this going through some files from an old hard drive. Crackfic prompted by recoilandgrace. Lyrics are from_ _"Dreams" (25 Jul 1853) by H. C. L.; composed by Faustina Hasse Hodges. I don't even know. _

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You know, he could never pick his head up off this counter again and be okay with it. It's so cool and smooth. Smooth like silence. And he pretends his ears are made of counter top, melting into the bar and gliding, stretching, /smoothing/ out past time and history and people in the bar arguing over which of their girlfriends was the hotter babe...Well. That was a dumb, irrelevant argument. Something tried to push its way through his head-He knew who the hottest babe was. Drunken stupor be damned, he knew. Clearly, he needed to inform these ignorant buffoons and share the wealth of his knowledge. "Oi!" He hollered in the general direction he thought the voices came from-the entire bar. "You fink your girlfrensss pretty, eh?"

A few heads turned at the commotion, but the Romeos remained locked in one-upmanship.

Cal pulled himself from the counter, sliding off the stool to stand, adrenaline giving him an edge over the half dozen scotches burning in his belly. "Oi! You! I said _do you think your girlfriend's pretty?_!

A scuffle over by the jukebox died out, the debate over "Cosmic Love" and its appropriateness to a bar setting forgotten, and the music swelled into the silence, contrasting weirdly with the suddenly dangerous mood in the room.

From the back: a hostile chin jut, elbows thrust out to make himself look bigger, sneer of contempt on his lips. "Yeah? You got a problem, buddy?"

"Yeah, son, I do. You think you know what pretty is, you pin-headed meatloaf? I should teach you a thing or two-"

"Simmer down, old man."

"I will not simmer down! I'm going to make all of you painfully aware of what true beauty is! Do you want to know true beauty? Gillian Foster is more radiant than the sun! That's what true beauty is! She is more elegant than the moon! Her hair is better by far than the fairest gold! Her complexion more pure than the waters high in the mountains! She smells better than all the flowers in the fields!" As Cal was speaking, he slowly ascended his stool until his last exclamation was given standing atop the bar, and as the short man stood on the counter, shouting his superlatives with a raised fist as he called down hellfire and brimstone upon these non-believers, the aforementioned heathen dissolved into laughter.

"Sure, but is she any good in bed?" One besotted gentleman in a flannel shirt called out. "That's where it counts!"

Cal grinned lasciviously and waggled his eyebrows so hard he staggered on the bar and nearly lost his balance. "Ah, wouldn't you like to know?" He righted himself before continuing, "Bosom to beat the queen's! Proper hourglass figure, she is!" And he held his hands up to demonstrate, licking his bottom lip.

"Somebody buy the man a drink!" Flannelman cried, and a businessmen in a rather wrinkled suit obliged with a shot of tequila. Several other patrons joined him, and after two more shots, Cal continued his adulation.

"She's got these eyes, yeah? Bluer than you ever seen. Fey, even. And she can look right through you with them. Expressive, too. She can't hardly lie. Except when she does. But mostly it's impossible, eh?" Eyes. Gillian's eyes. Something niggled at the back of his brain, so he reached down and threw back three more shots. "She's everything a man could dream of, y'know?"

And with that, Cal threw back his head and launched into song, accompanying the words with a jigging, shuffle dance step. As he sang and danced, the patrons helped him down to the much safer ground to continue his stepping on.

_I have had sweet dreams of a fairy form, _  
_That was ever around me there, _  
_Of her bird-like voice with its silvery charm_  
_Floating away on the evening air._  
_But alas for the flush and the wasting breath!_  
_Alas for thy terrible power, decay! _  
_An angel beckoned her home from the earth, _  
_Like the morning star she faded away! _  
_She has faded away! faded away! _

"Faded away! Faded away! Faded away-away-ay-ay-hey-heh-hhgh-" and that bothersome thought poking at him finally broke through into consciousness and he abruptly dropped his glass, grinding it under his shoe.

"You want to know the best part? SHE'S FUCKING DEAD. Real hot, yeah?"

Silence descended on the bar.

"Hey, buddy, why don't I call you a cab?" The bartender walked over, one hand extended palm up, the other carrying a broom and dustpan.

"So I can light a candle and _honor her spirit_? Bloody likely." Cal took a swing at the man-tried to-leaned too far into it, and landed on the ground, right in the pile of glass.

"Well, looks like we're calling an ambulance instead. At least you won't be going home."

Kalinda would step in front of a starving lion if it would save Alicia pain. And in the end, she did just that. A midsummer day's tragedy.


End file.
